


Agreement

by RecordRewind



Series: Toxic Conversations [1]
Category: Venom (Comics)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Conversations, Eddie is in a bad place, Eddie is very bitter, Gen, Missing Scene, Toxin is one-hundred twenty percent snark, mention of characters death, yes this is set back when he hated the Symbiote
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 15:06:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16286840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RecordRewind/pseuds/RecordRewind
Summary: After the fight against the Slayers in Philadelphia, and the uneasy truce reached with Agent Venom, Eddie and Toxin finally have a chat. It's not fun, for either of them.And then, an opportunity presents itself.





	Agreement

**Author's Note:**

> Set between Toxin With A Vengeance and the 2015 Carnage series, taking some liberties with how Eddie was approached by the FBI (that is, ignoring canon completely about the matter)
> 
> Bear in mind that Eddie was set on killing the Symbiote, at the time. Bad times...
> 
> (past Eddie/Symbiote is kind of implied)

 

 

Toxin had been keeping unusually quiet since they came back from Philadelphia.

Eddie knew he shouldn't complain about that. If anything, he should count himself extremely lucky the symbiote hadn't tried asserting dominance over the bond again. When they had been forced together he didn't even had time to attempt putting on any kind of resistance. Toxin had gone straight for his core, where it had found the dark, pained mass of his hate for Venom, and that had been like throwing gasoline over an open flame. They blazed and burnt and went for the kill.

It hadn't been until the moment when Agent Venom had tried to physically pull him out of the fusion, while real flames were hurting them, that Eddie had managed to think alone again. He had been confused, incredulous... and then Toxin had yanked its host right back, to either die or survive with it, and Eddie had remembered. The one he was looking at wasn't a friend, wasn't someone who would help him. They were Venom, in a new shape, and they had hurt him, again and again. They didn't even let him find his freedom, they _left_ him to be captured and bonded to another, again.

They had left him with only hate to show him the way, and hate had been devouring him alive.

He and Toxin had survived, somehow. They had made an agreement.

And then, again because of Thompson, that agreement was null.

 

-

 

He was sitting in a run down bar with a by now half-empty bottle of whisky in front of him and a buzz in his head that was more annoying than pleasurable, when Toxin poked up into his mind.

_**This tastes terrible and I don't like what it does to your brain. Stop drinking it.** _

“I don't think so.”

With what he knew perfectly well amounted to childish petulance, he poured himself another glass. The smell hit his enhanced senses hard enough it made him grimace. He still downed it.

He could feel the symbiote glaring at him.

_**At least you could drink something pelted. The taste is better. Pat used to-** _ the thought was abruptly cut off. The afterimage of a face flashed briefly in the back of Eddie's mind, and then disappeared, buried so deep its features were instantly wiped from his conscious memory. The symbiote seemed to retract, make itself smaller, angrier.

“Well, sorry-not-sorry, I paid for this bottle and I am not leaving this place till I finish it. So. Cheers to us.” He filled the glass again, but this time he took only a sip.

He didn't know why he was doing this. He didn't even enjoy getting wasted.  _ It _ had known that. 

Sometimes, when they were watching over the streets years ago, he had had to drink with someone, in order to loosen their tongue and gather informations. It was a skill he had learnt while being a reporter. He would only drink the strict necessary himself, and then his othe-- _ it  _ would take care of keeping his mind clear, flushing away any intoxicating chemicals.

“If you don't like the state of my brain why don't you just make me undrunk? It's nothing to you,” he muttered.

This time there was something unsure in the absence of a reply. Eddie considered it, looking at the bottle.

“You don't know how to do it?”

Again, silence.

“I thought you all knew this kind of things. By instinct, or genetic memory, or whatever.” It had never occurred to Eddie that the symbiotes might need to learn some of their tricks. Surely Carnage had seemed pretty much self-sufficient, right after bonding to Cletus. And this one too.

The clearing from intoxication trick had been a surprise to him. They had found out in San Francisco. After they stopped a home-invasion... the old lady they helped had all but placed herself between them and the window, almost threatening to call the police if they didn't accept some kind of thank you gift. Eventually they conceded and she gave them a bottle of chocolate liquor, a gift from her nephews in Italy, of all things. He had planned to give it to Beck, but then he decided to open the bottle and take a sip since the Symbiote seemed so curious about it, and they ended drinking it all in a matter of minutes. Sweet, but hard-hitting. They almost crashed against a building, swinging, and then, all of a sudden, his mind had gone from foggy to crystal clear again. Useful trick.

No wonder the Symbiote had gorged itself with the chocolate-rich drink. That had been before discovering about the phenethylamine. Eddie almost snorted. Maybe he should have told Flash to stack some Cadbury bars...

Or maybe the Symbiote had told him about what it needed already.

_ Fuck _ . The thought had an almost jealous quality that made him shake his head, angrily. What was up with him now?! He should have been... way past this!  


He felt the presence into his mind crawl forward again, and this time it was darkly amused.

_**You seem to miss my granpa.** _

_Like I miss the sickness. I will kill it.  
_

_**And yet, when you actually could do that you didn't seize the opportunity. I thought we had a deal. But you are weak and you dwell on your past so much. You regret and you miss what you can never have again. You all do that. I saw it happen already.** _

_I preferred you very much when you were quiet._

_**Are you jealous of what that new host has? Is that why we hunted down those drug-dealers, back in Philadelphia? Were you missing those nice times together with Venom?** _

_Shut up or I swear I'll rip you off my throat with my bare hands..._

_**Because I tried that crime-fighting gig already and** _ **that** **_didn't work so well for_ us  _either!!_ **

A crack.

Eddie looked at his hand, small shards of glass sticking into the skin. Blood mixing with honey-colored liquid, dripping on the cheap plastic cover of the table. Quietly, he watched as small red tendrils pushed out the shards and weaved the skin back together with precision.

“Are you alright?”

He glanced up to the waitress, and pulled his arms off the table as she swept the shards and spilled whisky away, collecting them in a towel.

“Yeah. Placed it down a little too hard. Sorry.”

“Don't worry. Cheap glasses, that's why...” she muttered. She had dark circles under her eyes, and she looked like she was way past her usual shift.

“Can I have another glass?”

“Of course.”

He watched as she went back to the counter, then looked down at his hand again, and frowned. The skin was healed, but there were tiny white lines left. The lightest of scars. He wondered if that was another thing this symbiote had yet to perfectly learn to do, or if Toxin was trying to make some kind of point.

_You didn't try to attack your... granddad, either. When I decided to let it and Thompson go. You just went with my decision without questioning it._

_**Oh so now you're complaining I listened to you? Good to know, next time I'll make sure not to...** _

_Was it because they saved us? Was that.. the thing you wanted from it? To think that it might care for you..._

The silence that followed reminded Eddie of a teenager pouting. He didn't like that thought, the closeness that it implied, at all.

_**Do you want Venom back?** _ Toxin asked, eventually.

_No. Never._ The way his gut clenched when he thought that  _would_ have become easier to ignore, he knew it. He knew it.

_**Then why...?** _

“Whatever Thompson is doing with it, he is doing something good. At least for the moment. But I know that it won't last and you can be sure that when he'll finally break we will be there to take care of that.”

Something good.

Like Scott Washington had been doing...

He pressed his hand against his mouth, looking up to the ceiling, then he closed his eyes. He inhaled slowly and pushed the anxiety, the  _ panic  _ that had been coiling within him, traveling with him like another unwanted guest, down into his throat.

It had been the right thing to do. It  _ had _ to have been, he knew that. He... had known that so clearly...

This time Toxin didn't probe the memory, and Eddie was grateful for that. And he knew he didn't deserve the... kindness, or whatever that was.

_**Yes. We will take care of that.** _ Toxin told him instead.

Eddie breathed out.

Someone stood next to the table. He didn't glance at first, thinking it was the waitress, with the glass. Then the smell of gunpowder (cleaned, washed away, and yet some of it remained) hit him.

“Edward Brock?”

He sighed. “In the flesh.” He opened his eyes, and saw a stern-looking woman looking at him. Everything about her screamed Feds, or higher. Another agent was standing a few steps back, and the waitress and the couple of other patrons in the bar where nowhere to be seen. God, he was getting sloppy. Eddie wondered how many fully-armed agents were waiting outside for a signal.

_**Do we fight them?** _

_Slow down, kid. Let's see what's their move first._

_**Yes, but don't come complaining with me if their next move is a sonic blast...** _

_Be quiet..._

The woman sat down across him. From her expression Eddie was sure she would have much more preferred to be pointing a gun at him.

“My name is Claire Dixon, FBI.”

“Of course,” Eddie looked at her, realizing he had to concentrate to keep her face in full focus. Damn, he really shouldn't have drunk so much--

_**Give me a couple of minutes.** _

He blinked.  _ I thought you said you didn't know how to do it... _

_**I'm a fast learner. And... you have traces of the neural pathways granpa used. I can read them. I just didn't want to.** _

_ Neural pathways... _ Alright. That was a very disquieting new piece of information that Eddie would have to deal with later, he decided.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked, back to sounding smooth. She didn't look impressed.

“I will keep this short. The agency is forming an anti-symbiote task force.”

“You... do know who are you talking to, right?”

“Yes. We have been keeping track of you since before you acquired your latest... asset. Since the island.”

_**Am I an asset?** _

“You managed to kill one symbiote and its host, Donna Diego, and to incapacitate another, by yourself. Because of this, and of your past... activities, there are those in the Bureau who feel you are particularly qualified for this job.”

_'Incapacitate'_ she had said. Eddie didn't blink, just absorbed the piece of information and put it aside. He could  _feel_ Toxin smirking as he did that.

“So that's what this is? A job offer? Because as you clearly know we got an offer from the FBI already in the past. I know how that works for people like me.”

“Put it like this,” the other agent said. “This is an opportunity for a clean slate. To start anew.”

“I heard that song before.” Eddie didn't look away from Dixon's eyes. “The real question is. Do I get to say no?”

She didn't reply, and Eddie grinned, without amusement. “Figured as much...”

“Perhaps you want to hear what this task force's priority is.” Dixon said. Eddie raised an eyebrow.

“Cletus Kasady and the Carnage symbiote.” The other agent stared at her, before catching himself, taken aback by her straightforwardness. Eddie let out a low whistle. Into his mind, into his chest, he felt Toxin ripple and tense. Felt its anger, felt it lapping at the edges of his own. Again, embers ready to flare.

His grin grew larger.

A chance to tie at least this loose end _they_ left. To make up for the sins of his past.

“I think we might have an agreement here,” he said. Dixon was watching him, clearly suspicious.

_**Yes. I think we do.** _

 

**Author's Note:**

> ...yes, this was motivated also by my wanting to retcon Scott's death.
> 
> Donna and Scream are dead... at least as far as the FBI knows >_> I wouldn't trust them about it...


End file.
